en-CA, bills, wrapper, status

en-CA, bills, wrapper, share_this

We believe it is important for the public to be able to easily access information about which special interest groups support or oppose this legislation with their campaign contributions. Unfortunately, state governments do not disclose contribution data in ways that are sufficiently timely or fully open. As a result, the process of finding out which entities support and oppose this bill is more difficult and time-intensive than it needs to be... and the public is kept in the dark about the systemic influence of money in the political process, usually until after key votes are already cast.

In the future, our goal is to work with our data partners for campaign contribution information -- the National Institute on Money in State Politics and MAPLight, both non-profit and non-partisan organizations -- to create more versions of state-level transparency sites like MAPLight California. In addition, we seek open-source volunteer programming time and non-profit funding support to link state-level elected officials with the rich open data sets at an allied non-profit project, LittleSis.org, building "a free database detailing the connections between powerful people and organizations."

Do you know of existing money-in-politics resources for this state that we can display here for the public benefit on the open Web? Let us know.. Until then, see how you can help support our work and get this vital data -- on which special interest groups are supporting and opposing individual bills in state legislatures via their political donations -- in place.